Rethinking our brand in the digital world
In an exercise to consolidate our image and overcome the new challenges of the technology market ecosystem, Kyocera Document Solutions announced a renewed global corporate identity.
For more than 60 years, Kyocera Document Solutions was the pioneer of printers. But we’ve evolved to become so much more. We were ready to rebrand and to show the world who we are and who we’ve become.
Kyocera is now a comprehensive provider of total document solutions across industry. It was a natural evolution, but a bold step nonetheless: we foresaw the danger of remaining stuck and chose to lead the way for others in the industry.
Our organisation is rooted in the philosophy of our founder, Dr. Kazuo Inamori. “Kyocera’s history is a story of doing what no one else had dared to do and of opening roads where no one had ventured before,” the philosophy explains. We wanted to embrace that change and modernise our branding.
New Visual Identity
Our new visual identity reflects the changes in our organisation.
A primary colour palette of black and white, and a vibrant new secondary palette of purple, blue, yellow and orange has been introduced, all of which will complement the classical Kyocera red and show the dynamic spirit of the company.
Furthermore, the colour green was added to our colour palette in order to reflect our keen desire and focus upon being environmentally friendly and ecologically sustainable. This is something we’ve achieved with the success of our pioneering ECOSYS range in terms of our product portfolio, but we had to find a way to show this in our branding too.
Next, we used a grid to represent each piece of data that comes into our workplaces as a single plot in a structured environment. Emerging through the grid are images of us, humans, who are able to put business knowledge and expertise to work.
Finally, we created a series of hand-drawn gestures which overlay the grid, showing the importance of the human touch.
Maintaining and evolving a brand personality
While our philosophy was laid down more than 60 years ago, global brand personalities are constantly changing and evolving. As we face up to new challenges, we must adapt our aims and goals to respond to the environment in which we operate.
Changing a brand is a major decision for a company and planning for the future must be taken into account. Finding an identity which is flexible and adaptable to match every possible business need is the goal of any designer. After all, the brand appearance is how customers will come to know our company, wherever they may be and whatever their industry is.
Built around the personality traits of the brand of optimism, humility and a desire to learn, our brand revamp is far from the final step for us.
Rather than being at the end of a process, it is the start of a new journey towards new markets, industries and approaches. With more than 60 years of experience, we know that there will be obstacles to overcome, but we have a brand strong enough to take on those obstacles and thrive.
For more information on the renewed brand identity:-
1. Unveilling of renewed brand identity – Press Release –9 April 2019
2. Brand Personality: The one factor which matters more than any other in digital branding
3. Three reasons why a brand’s visual identity matters in a digital world
4. How Kyocera Document Solutions identified a need to change
Sharon Peché - Marcom Manager - Kyocera Document Solutions South Africa
